Re: NBC: Immigration Rallies Draw Thousands Nationwide


"JTrianta" <JTrianta@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1143339058.939577.23660@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It depends on the school district.

Several districts in the Bay Area receive fixed funding from the state
regardless of attendance. In those cases, it does burden the resources
of the school.

Oh, yeah, I'm not going to discount what you're writing...and, in all
fairness, I really only painted the best case scenario.
But, when you have a child who is in school because his parents are in the
country illegally, there is a lot of potential for that child' presence to
encroach on a school district's General Fund.
For example, educators are often paid extra for having certification to
teach English Language Learners....and are also required to take a course to
get such certification. This is a result of California banning straight-up
Bilingual Classes.

What drove this vote was the anger of many Californians feeling as though
too much of what was going on in the classroom was being slanted and geared
to meet the needs of students whose English language skills were lacking.
Of course, there is nothing in the law that states that English is the
official language of the United States, let alone California. But, I can
understand a lot of parents feeling resentment over having their
English-speaking children subjected to the tedium/slower pace that comes
from Bilingual Classes. School districts would pack in students for whom
English was their native/first language into these classes. The given
rationale is that the English-speaking kids would acquire another language
(Spanish, Tagalog, Cantonese, Vietnamese, etc.); all the while, the English
Language Learners would have great English-speaking role-models (a dodgy
bet...I have ELL students who've mastered the English language a lot better
and with more proficiency than a lot of students for whom English is their
primary/first language)... and the ELL students would have peer tutors
amongst them Understandably, a lot of parents didn't go for this, figuring
that their children are in school to get the best education possible...and
that it is not their child's responsibility to be in a classroom where the
difficulty of the curriculum is compromised or taught at a slower pace in
order to help students who were English Language Learners.

The reality was that school districts will pack a class to capacity...and if
there were five vacant spots in a Bilingual Class, then, what the hell...put
five native English speakers into those chairs in order to get the best bang
for the buck.

Well, as a result of doing away with Bilingual Education (as it had been),
school districts, in order to be compliant, now had to foot the bill for
educators to get this required certification needed to teach students who
were English Language Learners. This came at a cost of about $2,000 per
teacher to take this extensive training (this is where I met my wife...we
both were pretty much forced to take this class...but figure that at least
we got each other out of doing so). Then, teachers were now to be paid a
yearly stipend of a few hundred extra dollars for having this certification
and teaching ELL students. It wound up costing a helluva lot more than the
way the original Bilingual programs operated.

Still, I'm not so blind that I cannot understand where a parent who's
feeling resentment is coming from...Still, a proposition that was meant to
send a message about the feelings of Bilingual Education wound up costing
California a lot more money if they'd just left it alone. So, in this
instance, resentment (sometimes justifiable...sometimes racist-driven) wound
up being more costly.
And, in all fairness, a lot (if not the majority) of the students who were
receiving Bilingual services and placed in Bilingual classes were the
children of immigrant parents who were here legally (in other words, it
wasn't the result of massive numbers of illegal immigrants).

That said, there are definitely ways that a district will wind up paying
extra for a student whose parents are here illegally. If a student is
required to receive Special Education Services (and the severity of this can
range from receiving Resource Learning Services...to being placed in a class
with only 9-15 other students...to requiring that the student has a
full-time aide/assistant), then it can potentially cost a district extra
thousands of dollars a year. And, regardless of whether a student's parents
are legal or illegal, failure to comply with the Special Ed program that's
been spelled out for a student can result in fines that are often climb to
six-digit figures. As is, most Special Education programs are grossly
under-funded...and this is already a thorn in the side of a lot of school
district. This means that...in order to avoid heavy fines/penalties for not
being compliant...that Special Education programs will often encroach on a
district's general fund (money that already on a tight budget but is
ear-marked for general education classes...and pays for supplies, the
utility bill, wages, etc.). So, yeah, if you have student in need of severe
Special Education services...and that child is here as a result of having
parents who aren't even "legal"...for sure that's going to be a drain on any
school district.

With all due respect and trying to be as sensitive as possible, I cant
support the education of illegals even if it means keeping some of our
schools open. My wife is in the Education field and she too has a
different outlook on this than I do.

Curious....is her outlook along the lines of mine?
I do understand your outlook...and would never even entertain saying that
your points are not without some merit/validity.
But, being in the thick of it...and working daily with children, I think my
outlook is going to come from a different point of view,
one where immigration laws/policies are secondary to what my job is first
and foremost...
Just as we aren't inclined to shun or make a leper out of a student who has
one or both parents in jail, we aren't going to do the same to a student
whose parents are here illegally.
These children pay for the sins of their parents on a daily basis...you're
not going to get a lot of teachers compounding that payment.

This has been my experience...even after having been to
meetings/conventions with teachers from all over the country.....and often
you can't get any more different than a pack of teachers from California and
a pack of teachers from Texas. The two very different states usually try
to cancel out each other's way of voting when it comes to setting policy at
a national level (NEA).
Still, I've never come across a teacher from Texas who'd even consider
turning a child in for being at school (all the while knowing that child's
parents were not here legally). I've colleagues and friends who range from
being some of the staunchest conservatives to being sickeningly/saccharine
do-gooder liberal...and they differ in a lot of ways. However, dropping a
dime on a child because of the status of that child's parents (something
over which a child has absolutely no control)...that's something that I've
never seen advocated or endorsed by any of my colleagues, regardless of how
strict they may wish for the USA's immigration policies to be. After all is
said and done, I think there is a general consensus that schools are
something of a safe haven and a sanctuary for children. You aren't going to
meet many in my profession who'd be willing to compromise that sort of
setting, particularly if it means that a child feels that he or she will at
least get a fair break in life for six hours in that child's day
(particularly when the remaining 18 hours of that child's day are going to
be a living hell). No, can't say that I've ever come across a single
teacher who'd ever dream of turning a student in for violation of a
country's immigration policy....


.

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